| Topic: | Re:Should people in North Chiswick now accept they live in Acton? | |
| Posted by: | Francis Rowe | |
| Date/Time: | 29/07/20 11:07:00 |
| A consensus seems to be growing that the pandemic will have some benefits for neighbourhood shopping areas to offset all the obvious negatives. In London the West End is likely to be avoided by locals reluctant to use public transport and also hit by an absence of tourists. A huge number of closures is inevitable. Big shopping centres are also going to have problems and it is interesting to see Westfield converting House of Fraser into offices. The opportunity for local shopping areas is there but for a slice of a smaller cake so they need to have a strategy. At the moment everything seems to be working against Chiswick - roadworks, reduced parking, an unsympathetic licensing regime, high rates, high rents, lots of vacant units, patchy refuse collection and now reduced access for an significant proportion of regular customers. Acton has a growing number of advantages - population growth, improving transport links including maybe even Crossrail one day and better, cheaper parking. The notion that it might become a more desirable place to live than Chiswick (riverside locations excepted) isn't entirely preposterous. |